The Pointless War on Drugs

All drugs can be harmful. Regardless of the law. The ‘War on Drugs’ is just as useful as a ‘War on Eating Junk Food’ or a ‘War on Having Sex’. People will always want to feel less pain, feel happier for a while, feel more relaxed, feel better etc.

The phenomenal amount of money that is poured into enforcement of our drug laws could be much better spent on preventative work, addressing the social reasons why people may go on to use problematicallly and of course decent treatment programmes. A statistic on last week’s Channel 4 programme ‘Our Drugs War’ stated that only 1% of Heroin is being stopped from getting into the country. More than 60% is necessary for it to have any effect at all on the market. This surely shows how pointless it is. The market it too massive. The market is in the hands of dealers. Dealers make big money. There may be some of you now that will be thinking that this is the Police being ineffective. I think not. Even if all the Police were to focus solely on Drugs and no other crimes there would still be Drugs on the streets. Dealers supply a demand and there will ALWAYS be a demand.

Unfortunately because a lot of people believe everything they read in the papers debate around the issue has mainly been based on a lot of ignorant crap. ‘Journalists’ who seem to forget that people who use and misuse drugs (there is a difference) are PEOPLE too. Fancy that! People with feelings, everyday people, some who can afford their use, some who can’t, some who’ve had a decent start in life, some who haven’t. All sorts of real people. Some of the drug ignorant fail to see the irony and hypocrisy that they themselves use one of the most harmful drugs – Alcohol for some of the same reasons as people use drugs which happen to be illegal. They choose not to understand. Until more people do then the harm will go on, the cycle will continue.

That is why the War on Drug is Pointless. Well some of the reasons why but I’d be here all night if I were to carry on.